Update & YAY for Market Basket!

Hi everyone. Long time, no blogging. Let me catch you up. First, my long absences were due to being sick as a dog for the first 4 1/2 months of my pregnancy. Then, it was more because I started consulting away from my home office 4 days per week, which plum wore me out. A couple of weeks ago, I experienced a significant amount of bleeding. After 3 days in a hospital in Boston with a level 1 NICU (in case baby girl decided to come early), they could not determine the cause of the bleeding. I've been on bed rest ever since. Let's just say I've had some time to think about the blog again...though it won't last for long - we are going to be induced early in order to decrease the changes of any further complications.

In the meantime, if you live in MA or NH, I hope you've heard the news! Our local supermarket chain, Market Basket, has introduced gluten and dairy free mixes that are their own brand! "Generic" brand mixes, if you will, which carry a "generic" brand price tag - only $3.59 a pop! But are they any good?

My husband first discovered them by perusing their weekly ad flier. We immediately picked up both the yellow cake mix (which, in my opinion, is very hard to get right) and the cookie/bar mix (I was also curious to see if they are produced in a dedicated facility, which they are!). Soon after, I mixed up the yellow cake mix into cupcakes and topped them with chocolate frosting. The texture was very nice - not grainy at all. They had a good flavor, too. My non-GF husband agreed! Oh, and they couldn't be easier to make. I apologize for not have a picture of them, but I just wasn't thinking at the time.

Then I got a call asking if I would make up each mix, taste test them, and report my honest thoughts to you all via this blog. Sure thing! So, one of each of the 5 mixes showed up at my door. I lost site of my charge for a short while during the baby scare, but then suddenly I've had lots of help around here since I am not supposed to move around much.

First up, my mom made the quick bread mix. There are 3 yummy sounding recipe options on back - pumpkin, zucchini-carrot, and banana. We went for the banana. OH MAN! Yum-ville! Moist, tasty, sweet but not too sweet and a perfect texture. My non-GF mom and non-GF friend, Emily, both agreed. We put some in the freezer for my GF sister to try and she was in heaven, too. Lots of thumbs way up!

Next came the corn bread mix, which we made up into corn muffins. Easy again and so delicious! I got a tummy ache from eating too many at once. This mix isn't sweetened, so if you want a sweeter bread/muffin, you can add what you'd like. I used honey. There is a recipe for dredging chicken in the mix, which I totally intend to try. Oh, and the mix made as many muffins as it said it would, which I find is pretty unusual.

My plan is to do one more post before baby girl arrives - we are being induced late next week. Stay tuned for reports and pictures on the cookie/bar mix and the waffle/coffee cake mix! I fully believe that now that one mainstream supermarket chain has taken this leap, many more will, too!